by Donna Hosie
Arthur took the book from my trembling hands. I watched his blue eyes flick from right to left as he read down the page.
“Bedivere married three times and had fifteen children,” announced Arthur, snapping the book shut. A thin plume of dust exploded skywards.
My stomach turned inside out. The plate of food was knocked to the side as my elbows fell onto the kitchen table. My head slumped into my hands. Carefully balanced cutlery crashed onto the white cold tiles with a noisy clatter.
I had lost him.
“And the Oscar goes to…me,” said Arthur, throwing the book at my head.
“What did it say?”
“According to this, Bedivere became a hermit,” grinned the anti-Christ. “A life of Godliness and penitence. All done completely on his lonesome.”
“That doesn’t sound like Bedivere,” I replied, rubbing my head where the hard cover had hit me.
“Well, read the title,” snapped Arthur. “The book is full of myths. Now I’ve done my good deed for the day, you should eat some food and then go do your homework.”
My father was in London, but not at home. Arthur was taking on the surrogate role again. Things were not going well between our parents, and the gulf that existed between them had become oceanic. Secretly I suspected my father of wishing for terrorists. At least it would give him something to talk about, something to do.
My stomach seemed to be clawing for the food on the plate for once. I ate my cold potatoes and then went to my room with the book.
To my horror, Talan and David were not even mentioned in the fancy italic script. Gareth and his brothers were in there, as was Tristram, who was more famous for being in love than anything else.
Arthur was the obvious presence throughout, although I had to smile at his description: old and naïve, the ultimate in cuckolded husbands. I couldn’t bring myself to read anything that mentioned Morgana. The bile rose in my throat the second I saw the name.
Fire at her fingertips? I wanted the flame at her feet.
I left Bedivere’s entry for last. I wanted him to slip into my dreams. It would make a change from the nightmares.
There was an image of him. A painting, like a king in a pack of playing cards. Mud brown, wavy hair with matching dirt coloured eyes. This wasn’t my Bedivere.
A piece of paper fell out of the page. A flyer.
“I thought we could go,” said a voice from my doorway.
“A medieval enactment of the infamous battle of Breguoin,” I read aloud. “Are you insane?”
“It could be fun.”
“I don’t want to watch a handful of overweight men with no lives, dress up like knights and pretend to kill each other,” I replied. “It makes a total mockery of everything we all went through.”
“Well, I’m going,” said Arthur, shrugging his shoulders, “and Sammy’s coming as well.”
I levered myself off the bed, crossed the room and slammed the door in his face.
I could hear him, rustling in the trees. Always ahead of me. A flash of brilliant white turned to a glimmer of green. The trees were beckoning me forward, whispering in the leaves. He has come, he has come. My eyes were squinting with the pain of straining. Just one glance, anything. I could hear him breathing. Slow, measured. He was waiting. Biding his time. Then a woman in blue appeared. She was holding a long, thin dagger, shaped and coloured like a frozen icicle. I was back in my little room in Avalon Cottage. The woman started to stride towards me. I expected her movements to be graceful, like rippling water, but they weren’t. She was coming for me. I screamed as a bell started ringing.
The alarm clock belched out its harsh cry. The red pixels blinked at me. I watched them change from 7:01 to 7:07 before I could move away from the night terror that had paralysed me.
I slipped on a pair of faded blue skinny jeans and my black leather boots. There had once been a heel on them, but it had worn down. A rainbow striped hoodie, a knitted green hat that covered my ears, and fingerless black gloves were slowly added, layer by layer.
Why was I doing this? It was going to be torturous in every way imaginable.
Arthur was driving, if that hunk of junk called a car held out for long enough. Forget the seventy miles to Winchester. We would be lucky to make it out of London. Plus, Arthur’s threat proved prophetic: Slurpy was also coming. She had arrived the night before. Judging by the sounds that filtered out from Arthur’s room, it was unlikely either had caught much sleep.
I climbed into the back of Arthur’s rust bucket. It stank of spilt milk. For two hours, I pinched my nose and read my book on Arthurian Legends. I ignored the driver – who became lost twice – and the passenger – who was navigating, and therefore the reason we became lost twice. Thankfully, they were so busy arguing I didn’t have to contend with them licking each other’s face off. I would hitch-hike back to London if they started that.
We reached Winchester before lunch. The sky was pale grey and the smell of rain was heavy in the air. The enactment was taking place on a farmer’s field, just outside of the city. The grass was thick and green and kept short by fat sheep that lumbered around without a care in the world. Evergreen and deciduous trees mixed side by side in large copses. I thought about trying to climb one, just so I could read my book in peace and quiet.
“Hail, noble warriors,” cried a man dressed as a court jester. His pointed face kept slipping out of an orange and red hat that was shaped like a starfish. It even had bells on it.
“We’re here to watch the battle,” replied Arthur. He was grinning.
“That’ll be ten pounds each,” replied the jester, sticking out a hand with long dirty fingernails.
Arthur paid. Neither Slurpy nor I bothered to take our hands out of our pockets. Three more flyers were handed to us with the afternoon’s events: maypole dancing, a joust, and fighting in the ring. The battle had been cancelled because half of the enemy were stuck on the M4 motorway after their coach broke down.
“This is such a stupid idea,” I mumbled, burying my cold face into the neck of my hoodie.
“Stop complaining,” replied Arthur. “I’m the one who has paid for this.”
“I need coffee,” said Slurpy, lighting a cigarette. “Can you get me one, babe?”
I walked over to a group of middle-aged women who were dressed in long dresses. The low scooped necklines showed off their wrinkled cleavages. They beamed broadly at me.
“It’s nice to see some young blood here,” remarked one. She was turning blue with the cold, although she wasn’t shivering. “Is this your first time, love?”
“Not exactly,” I replied, wishing to be polite without lying.
The women were sheltering under a large tent. It was royal purple with long, bright yellow tassels. Every time the wind blew they fluttered in the breeze, like strands of fluorescent hair.
Suddenly a tune gripped at my insides. Wind chimes. The sound took my breath away. It was unmistakable. I had it memorised.
“Pretty, aren’t they, love?” said one of the women. “Only twenty pounds each, thirty if you buy two.”
My excitement was extinguished. Hanging from the roof of the tent, on a thick piece of nylon wire, were scores of wind chimes. Their long, thin metal flutes gently knocked against each other as the tassels fluttered.
“They’re lovely,” I replied. There would be no sale.
Men dressed in glinting golden armour mingled with the crowds, happily posing for photos with children who had been thrust towards them by over-zealous parents, determined to have a good time. I couldn’t see Arthur or Slurpy, and so I bought a hot chocolate and went to sit in one of the tiered stands that had been erected for the spectators. My book was tucked safely into the large front pocket of my hoodie. Along with the acorn, the book was turning into my favourite possession.
The maypole dancing had thankfully finished and the joust was about to start when I heard the wind chimes again, this time matched by a deep baritone bell. They seemed to be battling
to be the loudest. At that very same moment, my scar, now a faded seven inch curve across my stomach, started to tingle.
I pulled the book out of my pouch, just as a large bottomed woman pushed past me. Balancing myself, the scalding hot chocolate, and the book took too much coordination, as the tiered seats wobbled precariously. The book fell between the gaps, onto the muddy grass below.
“Move over,” wheezed the enormous arse - all I could see above me was dimpled flesh squeezed into pale pink leggings. It wasn’t pleasant.
A voice crackled over the loud speaker. The knights were being introduced for the joust. My ears pricked up as I heard the name David, but it was just a person called David Barnes from Rochester. As I made my way to the steps leading down, I saw a black horse rearing in the foreground. David of Barnes was having trouble keeping hold of his balsa wood lance and the reins. It seemed obvious to all that his horse would unseat the rider without the need for a challenger.
I clambered over slippery steel construction rods and headed underneath the stand towards my book. It had fallen open at the page describing Merlin.
Then I heard the wind chimes for a third time. They were distant, muffled. A bell rang out. It had one tone, but it echoed into the country air with a musicality I had never heard from a church bell before. Something started to surge into my bloodstream. It was uncomfortable. A feeling of nervousness tempered by the threat of disappointment. The kind of anxiety I used to get before a race.
“Nimue, are you here?” I whispered, crouching down low under the stand.
“Talking to yourself again, freak?”
The tingle in my stomach was swamped by the fire of hatred ignited by that Welsh voice. It was a little scary, feeling so out of control. Knowing that if I could get away with it, I would cause her real harm.
“If I hear you call my sister that again…” said Arthur angrily.
“It was a joke,” whined Slurpy.
“No it wasn’t,” snapped Arthur, “and I’m telling you both now, I’m sick to death of being in the middle of your constant fighting.”
“She started it,” we cried.
“And I’m ending it,” yelled Arthur. “If you two actually made the effort, the pair of you could be friends, you know.”
“Hell will freeze over first.”
The joust had started. Feet were drumming the metal stands, and every few minutes a roar would rise up into the grey sky, as a would-be knight was sent crashing to the ground. Yet the three of us continued to argue like children.
It was Arthur who heard the ringing of the bell next. He stopped snapping like a piranha, and looked around the steel structure we were all sheltering under. I had seen the expression on his face before. He had starlight in his eyes.
“You can hear it too, can’t you?”
“Hear what?” asked Slurpy; she was looking slightly fatter in the face. She was the only person in the world who could put on weight and still look gorgeous.
“A bell,” replied Arthur softly. He stared at me, and then levered himself out through the poles.
“Don’t you dare run off again, Arthur,” I called, following closely.
A huge groan surged out from the crowd. The tannoy announced a draw. They hadn’t paid ten pounds each for that. They were baying for fallen warriors, dented armour and splintered wood.
“Titch.”
There was urgency in Arthur’s voice.
“What is it?”
I drew level with him. He was staring in the direction of a copse of trees. Grouped together were five figures. Two had their hands on their hips and appeared to be deep in serious conversation. Another was gesticulating wildly as he watched the unfolding joust. Another two were lazing back against the thick, sturdy trunks of a couple of trees.
There was a rush of blood to my head. If my skull hadn’t been there to stop it, my brain would have exploded into a million pieces with the force. I felt pressure behind my eyes, in the tubes of my ears and nose. I think my stomach was in my mouth and it was the consistency of custard.
Arthur and I took several paces forward. A cheer from the crowd. The figure who had been gesticulating wildly was now on his knees, pounding the ground with his fists. A tall male with curly blonde hair was laughing at him.
Another of the figures caught sight of Arthur and me. His face, which was round and plump, broke into a huge friendly smile. He motioned to one of the males leaning back against a tree. I couldn’t hear what the other person was saying, but from the way his mouth was moving, it was clear he was singing.
Why were my cruel eyes playing tricks on me? And why was Arthur complicit? This wasn’t real – it was a mirage. A happening when your desperate senses combine to betray your brain.
The fifth figure was now separating from the group of friends. My eyes were not drawn to the deep green windows that fizzed in the grey conditions. Instead, they were drawn to a sparkling pinprick attached to his olive coloured tunic.
An earring. Lost over a thousand years ago.
The figure was racing towards me. The cracked edges of his thin mouth started to rise. It would have been optimistic to call it a smile, but it was an attempt.
I started running.
I’ve always been good at running.
Searching for Arthur
Copyright: Donna Hosie
First Published: 2012
Second Edition
The right of Donna Hosie to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the author. You must not circulate this book in any format.
About the Author and The Return to Camelot Trilogy
Donna Hosie is an English writer currently living in Australia. She blogs at Musings of a Penniless Writer and has written extensively for the Harry Potter fandom.
Titles in The Return to Camelot Trilogy
Searching for Arthur
The Fire of Merlin
The Spirit of Nimue